I was out with Roger today and
picked him up before heading off to Swithland Reservoir.
It was a fairly brief visit to
Swithland Reservoir where we quickly found the female Velvet Scoter and the
Peregrine.
Many of the trees below the
dam have been chopped down, which will further damage the environment here for
woodland birds. I think it might
unlikely now to see any further Nuthatches that were often present.
From Swithland Reservoir we
set off to Rutland Water where we signed in at the centre and collected Normal
Hall’s optics and keys for his car as he had fallen on ice recently at Lyndon
breaking his hip. Roger was going to
drive it back later today as Norman is now back at home.
From the centre we drove to
the north arm where we quickly located both the female Long-tailed Duck and
Slavonian Grebe. The seven Barnacle
Geese were on the north shore but there was little else of note. At the fishpond we located a male Scaup
roosting amongst a flock of Tufted Duck.
We collected Norman’s car from
the Reserve Manager’s cottage and retuned to the Egleton car park. We decided to walk along the track where we
could get good views of the Egleton Meadows where we were hoping to locate the
Hawfinch. There were quite a few common
species, Blue Tits, Great Tits, Long-tailed Tits and Chaffinch feeding in one
of the hedgerows and Roger thought he saw a Brambling, which I then saw briefly
in flight. The next hedgerow contained
more of the same and we had further views of a female Brambling and there was
at least eleven Bullfinch as well but there was no sign of the Hawfinch. We continued to the last meadow where we had
several Fieldfare and Redwing but eventually decided to return to the car park
for lunch. As we approached the area
where we had stood for about forty minutes we were beckoned as they had just
seen the Hawfinch. A further thirty
minutes observing the hedge produced further views of the female Brambling and
also a male but still no luck with the Hawfinch.
Long-tailed TIt
Long-tailed TIt
Long-tailed TIt
After lunch we went to the
centre as there had been a Stonechat feeding just in front but we failed to
find it or anything else of note. We
decided to give the Hawfinch another go and after a short wait Roger picked it
at the bottom of the hedge and we then had reasonable views as it moved closer
to the top of the hedge and then to the top of the tallest tree where it then
flew off to the west.
We continued on to shoveler
hide on lagoon three where we located a drake and four red-headed Smew and
nineteen Snipe. A Buzzard was the only
other bird of note as it flew over the reed-bed and wood.
Roger had to go to get
Norman’s car back but I stayed in the hide and a short time after he had gone
three waders flew over an one at least was a Ringed Plover. I decided to go to dunlin hide on lagoon four
with Kerry Harrison to see if they had come down and found two Ringed Plovers
and a Dunlin on one of the islands.
There was also two Oystercatcher on another island and both these and
the Ringed Plovers were the first of the year for Rutland Water.
I returned to the centre and
was able to stay beyond the normal 16:00 closer as there was a meeting this
evening. This proved worthwhile as
initially I found a Little Egret close to mallard hide and the Barn Owl
appeared from the nest box and flew around a little later. Several Goosander also came in and were
joined by the female Red-breasted Merganser, which was a good end to what
turned out to be a pretty good day.
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